


Partnership

by Melandra



Category: Marlows - Antonia Forest
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 09:38:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melandra/pseuds/Melandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nicola and Patrick think back to the past...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Partnership

Nicola's dress was cool, cream silk. It draped beautifully round her legs, and made her feel elegant and sophisticated. It reminded her of Miranda's `coughing bear' dress, the pleated silk which had caused so many problems and was now hidden at the back of her wardrobe, despite Karen's many suggestions that surely it would now fit Fob. She straightened the skirt out, enjoying the feel of the material on her bare legs. As usual, Nicola was ready way too early, but the walled garden was sunny and deserted; an oasis of calm in the family-filled house-and-garden. 

"A penny for your thoughts, as Nanny used to say." Patrick, looking almost like a stranger in his pale grey suit, was suddenly there, smiling down at her. Nicola looked into his yellow eyes, and smiled. "They are not even worth that," she said. "I was just thinking this dress reminded me of the one I had when I was 14. That year we helped Edward Oeschli go home."

Patrick grinned, suddenly looking more like himself. "I remember that holiday. That dress. Our twelfth night party. You walked in there, looking just like Ginty..."

"And you gave me such a look..." "Well, what did you expect ?" He sighed. "She'd just got me expelled then dumped me." He was silent for a moment, emotions washing over his face. "No, I'm not being fair. I got myself expelled, and the dumping was mutual. It was the fact that she never told me what was going on that hurt."

Nicola squeezed his arm. There had been many moments over the years when she could have cheerfully strangled her elder sister, but that episode back during their term in Sara Crewe had to rank up in the top five. Thinking back to that long-ago Christmas, she finally gathered her nerve. "There's one thing I've always wondered about those holidays. You kissed me !"

He didn't look at her, but his cheeks were definitely flushed with colour, as he stared out towards the garden. "I often wondered when you were going to mention that," he murmured. "What timing you have, Nick !"

Her turn to blush. She bit her lip. Her ability to push things out of her mind, for later inspection, rather than making the sort of fuss for which Lawrie was renowned, meant she was often left with questions and thoughts long after everyone else had moved on. "It hardly seemed the right time ! I mean, we were planning what amounted to a kidnapping - and then I thought Peter and Giles had drowned...the fact that you'd kissed me in the village hall seemed somewhat inconsequential."

"Glad to hear it was so memorable." Patrick's voice was harsh, almost angry, and Nicola could have kicked herself for bringing up the subject.

"You idiot, Patrick. That's not what I meant, and you know it," she chivvied him. "But why did you ? And then never again ?" She blushed. "It was the first time a boy kissed me, you know. But after a while I began to think I'd just imagined it."

"I was an idiot," Patrick retorted. "There was this moment, when the whole Ginty thing blew up in my face, when I realised that if it had been you, I wouldn't have had any doubts. I would have known you were joking. And then, seeing you all covered in dust, under the stage, you looked so comforting, so normal, that..."

Comforting. Normal ! Huh ! Nicola, who'd relived that moment for years, had hoped the reasoning would have had more to do with her charm and beauty. "So what changed ?"

He blushed. "Staying up all night, in vigil, when we thought Surfrider was lost. Trying to reach Peter. To keep him alive."

"Even back then..." Nicola murmured.

Patrick laughed. "Way before then, Nick. Back in the days of the PM club. When we played make-believe. When he was Patrocles to my Achilles. It's just that I kept on hiding it deeper and deeper down. Way deep down. Like any good Catholic boy."

She leant back against the mossy wall. Artistically mossy, perfect for the photos in the wedding business Mrs Merrick ran, keeping the estate going, alongside Patrick's falconry courses. Nicola's mind was spinning. It was strange, really, how she'd just accepted things, never asked the questions. Perhaps she really was far too accepting, too ready to just let things happen in her life, as Rowan so often said. "So ... did you keep on falling for the Marlow girls because you couldn't have the Marlow guy you wanted ?" she asked, examining a brightly-coloured flower. 

"Natch," he said offhandedly. "I was planning to work my way through the lot of you."

"So what changed ?" Nicola glanced at him, and was surprised to see him blushing. 

"Have you seen your brother in dress uniform ? He told me he was marching in a parade, and suggested I should come to watch. He just didn't mention he was with the Navy contingent in Gay Pride. One thing led to another..."

"You can usually trust Peter to make sure things work out just the way he wants them," Nicola mused. She grinned. "I'll have to admit you're a step above the rest of his crushes." She shuddered slightly as she remembered Lt. Foley. It had been the first thing she'd though of, that day when her brother had casually mentioned, while seated round the dining table that, oh, did they know, he was gay. And Fob's smug smile at being the only one who knew, happy to be Peter's fag hag.

"There you are !" Pamela Marlow fluttered into the garden, her outfit a slightly unsuccessful compromise between `mother of the bride' and `royal garden party'. "Everyone's ready to start. I think Peter is beginning to think he's been left at the altar..."

"Never," Patrick affirmed, firmly pushing to the very back of his mind the thoughts and guilt which had, at one point, threatened to submerge him. Until Peter had come to his rescue, with his cheerful, matter-of-fact acceptance. His saviour. 

He glanced at Nicola, reaching out a hand. "Coming, best man ? Or did we decide on best woman ?"

Nicola clasped his hand, and led him towards the flower-decked room where the civil partnership would take place. "How about best friend ?" she said with a smile, as she accompanied him towards the front, where her brother stood, looking impossibly handsome.

"I think I can cope with that," Patrick said, leaning in to kiss her, lightly, on forehead, nose and chin.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for girlyswot in the New Year Resolutions 2009 Challenge


End file.
